Unscene Berlin

Even though I'm working right into the wee hours of Tag Der Arbeit (ironically), when I emerge into daylight, wreathed in smoke from the dance floor, I will do what every other Vitamin D deficient member of Berlin's nightlife community does: go to a free openair. I'm not sure why, or how, but every year since I first got here, the Berlin club community has had a sort of "opendoor openair" day. The entrance at [most] clubs is free... yes, even at the coolest and most expensive clubs. I think it's because they're all Social Marxist Degenerates (at least, according to the AfD  they are) with Hippy Utopian Leanings (at least, according to me they are). I Don't Know Why I Feel The Need To Use Caps For Those Sorts Of Phrases but it's really hard on the fingers so I'm just going to stop it, now. You will want to take advantage of this annual spirit of generosity by checking out as many never-seen-before Berlin venues as your dilated pupils ca...

"Berlin is a big city" - this is one of the first misconceptions you'll hear about Germany's capital.   Well, I hate to break it to you, but it's simply not true. Berlin is a small town, even though it sprawls as far as the eye can see. Witness the sheer unfamiliarity that many Berliners have with normal big city features like, say, commuter trains and escalators. Letting people off the train before you board seems like common sense if you live in a big city, doesn't it? The fact that I see scads of people trying to do the exact opposite every rush hour, and have done for the past nine years, tells me that they're still quite new at this whole 'metropolis' thing. And it's quite possible that they always will be. Or check out those big, extended families from Brandenburg that one regularly sees, frozen in fear at the top of the escalators in Alexanderplatz or Hauptbahnhof S-Bahn station.   It's so fast and steep!   Their panic...

There are so many hipsters turning up in Lichtenberg these days, I’m thinking of tagging and tracking them like the displaced urban wildlife they are. Here are some excerpts from my imaginary log: Journal 1. Section h,i,p Hipster no. 78 turned up dead in front of NP Markt today.  Moments before his collapse, he was seen rummaging through the reduced bins in the aforementioned supermarket.  He was heard remarking that they were ‘very lifelike’, as if under the misconception that he was in some sort of antikmarkt and/or art installation.  He dug out a bottle of gherkins that had expired in 1988, bought them and proceeded to go outside and take a selfy of him consuming one.  After posting the image to Facebook, he went into  convulsions and died within minutes, of a severe case of botulism. Journal 2. Sections s,t,e,r, s Hipster no. 32 was involved in an altercation with a Trabant vehicle today.  He saw the Trabant coming down Weitlingstrasse ...